Yale to Focus on Eliminating Nuclear Threats

Gareth Evans, Co-Chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (ICNND), will present a lecture titled “Eliminating Nuclear Threats” on April 27 at 1:00 p.m.

The talk, which is free and open to the public, will take place in SSS 114, corner of Grove and College streets. It is sponsored by the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization. Support also comes from the Gaddis Smith Lecture Series.

Evans is considered one of the world’s foremost spokesmen and prominent global advocates for abolishing nuclear weapons. His visit to Yale comes at an historic moment in the annals of nuclear security, nonproliferation and arms control. On April 6, the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review was released; on April 8 a new START Treaty was signed in Prague; on April 12–13 President Obama hosted the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington; and on May 10 the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference will begin in New York.

The International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, which he co-chairs with Yale alumna Yoriko Kawaguchi, is a joint initiative of the Australian and Japanese governments aiming to reinvigorate international efforts on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. Ernesto Zedillo, the Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, also serves on the Commission.

Evans, who left the presidency of the International Crisis Group in 2009, is the primary architect of and leading authority on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), the idea that the primary responsibility for protecting its own people from crimes of mass atrocity lies with the state itself; but when a state is unwilling or unable to halt or avert such crimes, the wider international community has a collective responsibility to take whatever action is necessary.

Among his other professional accomplishments, Evans founded the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC); was one of the longest serving of Australia’s Foreign Ministers (1988–96); and was Australia’s Resources and Energy Minister (1984–87); and. He initiated the Canberra Commission (1996) and was a member of the UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (2004), the Blix Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction (2006) and the Zedillo Commission on the Future of the IAEA (2008). He is currently the Chancellor of the Australian National University.

The Yale Center for the Study of Globalization studies the impact of our increasingly integrated world on individuals, communities and nations, and serves as a link between Yale and the world of public policy. For more information please visit www.ycsg.yale.edu or call 432-1904.